<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="auto">The European Renaissance was enabled by refugees from Constantinople too. Constantinople preserved the heritage and knowledge of the Roman Empire. When Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, many Byzantine scholars fled to the West, for instance to Venice and Florence, and contributed to the Renaissance.</div><div dir="auto">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_scholars_in_the_Renaissance</div><div dir="auto"> </div><div dir="auto">The Ottoman Empire prohibited the printing press (partially because <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">calligraphers felt threatened) which contributed to the decline of the Islamic world. </span></div><div dir="auto">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_spread_of_the_printing_press</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">-J.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div><br></div><div align="left" dir="auto" style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Frank Wimberly <wimberly3@gmail.com> </div><div>Date: 9/11/21 01:20 (GMT+01:00) </div><div>To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> </div><div>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Islamic Enlightenment? </div><div><br></div></div><div dir="auto">I think you can make the case that Islamic people partly enabled the European Renaissance. There was a library in Alhambra (?) that preserved original Greek and Christian writings. I wonder if they were copied by hand in order to make them more widely available.<br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">---<br>Frank C. Wimberly<br>140 Calle Ojo Feliz, <br>Santa Fe, NM 87505<br><br>505 670-9918<br>Santa Fe, NM</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:04 PM uǝlƃ ☤>$ <<a href="mailto:gepropella@gmail.com">gepropella@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote">Yeah, I thought that, too. But either way, this is the only recent article I've found that talks about how the enlightenment isn't a Western Exceptionalist thing. I've heard some black radicals claim that several other cultures have had something similar at other times and to other extents. But I'm not well read enough to know where, when, who, etc.<br>
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On 9/10/21 3:58 PM, Prof David West wrote:<br>
> It seems somewhat limiting to, even partially, equate 'enlightenment' with critical philosophy as this article does. The efflorescence of ideas, of sciences (especially astronomy, math, and medicine), and arts that occurred in the Islamic world long before the European Renaissance would seem a better foundation to conclude that Islam was already enlightened during (and before) the European Middle Ages.<br>
> <br>
> davew<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2021, at 2:26 PM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> Are Islamic philosophers critical of authority?<br>
>> <a rel="noreferrer noreferrer" href="https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2021/09/are-islamic-philosophers-critical-authority">https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2021/09/are-islamic-philosophers-critical-authority</a><br>
>><br>
>> "All this sheds an interesting light on a frequently asked question, <br>
>> which is why the Islamic world never experienced something like the <br>
>> European Enlightenment. Of course, that's a complicated issue. But part <br>
>> of the answer might simply be this: to the extent that 'enlightenment' <br>
>> involves the emergence of intellectuals who step back from the typical <br>
>> views of their society, and critically evaluate prevailing religious <br>
>> and philosophical ideas, the Islamic world was already 'enlightened' <br>
>> during the European Middle Ages."<br>
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-- <br>
☤>$ uǝlƃ<br>
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